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How To Raise White Worms For The Aquarium
Alden Smith


Every successful breeder of tropical fish knows that feeding live
foods to their charges is one of the best ways to maintain
healthy and active fish.

Live foods are overall high in protein. They stimulate spawning,
and help to intensify coloration. Live foods enhance the natural
tendencies of fish to forage for their food as they would in
their natural environment.


White worms (Enchytraeus albidus) are a great source of food for
the aquarium. They are about 70% protein, 14.5% fats, and
approximately 10% carbohydrate. The white worm in size is
approximately 3/4" to 1 1/2", somewhere between Tubifex and
Grindal worms. Fish love them, and they are appropriate for a
large variety of carnivore fish, even the smaller cichlids.

Nick Lockhart, breeder for King Discus feeds white worms twice
weekly to our breeding discus and juveniles. His goal is to
provide a wide variety of food to keep the fish interested and
feeding to stimulate breeding.


White worms are easy to raise. A plastic shoebox from the dollar
store will meet the needs of most aquarists. As worms need to
breathe, the container shouldn't be air tight. Cutting a small
hole in the lid and placing a piece of breathable foam in the
hole will suffice to allow enough oxygen to reach the worms.

Fill the container about 3/4 full with peat moss as the medium.
The peat moss should be wet, but not soaked. Test by squeezing a
bit of the medium in your hand. If a few drops emerge, then you
have it right. If water emerges from the mass in a stream, you
have it too wet.


Add your starter culture of worms. Finding a suitable starter
culture can at times be difficult. A good source can be from
auctions at local fish clubs, or from a fellow enthusiast. Also,
looking in the classified in the back pages of magazines like
Aquarium Fish Magazine or Aquarium USA can sometimes lead to a
good resource.

Place a piece of wet crustless white bread on top of the medium
for compost. Cover this with a sheet of plastic the size of the
slice of bread. The plastic aids in keeping the bread from drying
out. It is a good idea to bury the piece of bread in the medium
when first starting a culture to prevent mold from occurring.
Allow the worms a week to establish before feeding them. Check on
them on a daily basis to insure that they are eating the bread.


White worms will need to be housed in a cool dark place, free
from insects. We use an apartment sized refrigerator with a
temperature control sensor that maintains the temperature at
55-65 degrees Fahrenheit.

One of the best foods for white worms is Gerber's Baby Oatmeal.
Add a pinch of active dry yeast to the mixture. The trick is to
feed the worms enough to insure they thrive, but not so much that
it will begin to mold. A good rule of thumb is to feed only what
they will consume in three days. A little trial and error work is
needed here. If mold occurs, simply spoon it out of the medium,
and replace the food, using less the next time.


White worm cultures will "crash" if the population becomes too
large. This can be noted by the worms attempting to crawl up the
sides of the container. Simply dump the medium onto a sheet of
newspaper, separate the medium into two parts, and you have
another culture to fall back on if the first crashes. Get another
shoebox, top to 3/4 full with dampened peat moss, and you have
the insurance of a supply of white worms.

To harvest white worms, simply wait until a nice clump of them
are underneath the sheet of plastic, pluck them out with tweezers
or your fingers, and clean appropriately before feeding to your
fish. rinsing with dechlorinated water, by pouring from one
container to another will do the trick, removing any soil or left
over food. You can then feed the worms to your fishes.

The biggest thing to remember about growing white worms is to
never let the medium dry out. It is also a good idea to have two
cultures growing at the same time, in case one of the cultures
"crashes." Keep an eye out for mold, feed the worms
appropriately, and you will have happy, vigorous fish!

Alden Smith is a published author who has been marketing on the
internet for over 7 years. His website,
www.kingdiscus.com, is a resource for articles, software
and information on the tropical fish hobby. Visit his website for
more information on live foods, tracking software, and articles
on the tropical fish hobby, especially if interested in raising
discus fish. weekly articles are posted, along with updates for
Fish Minder software.






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